A pleasing exterior appearance of an electronic device is often difficult to pair with the market demand for advanced functionality, improved durability, and reduced thickness and weight. Some aesthetically pleasing materials may not be sufficiently durable to include in a device housing and other aesthetically pleasing materials may interfere with the advance functionality of the electronic device. Further, for certain input components such as buttons and keys, a user may physically engage the selected material several hundred thousand times, if not millions of times, over the life of a device.
Many visually pleasing solutions lack the durability for such extended function. This can be especially true when electronic devices and/or associated input devices are made smaller, thinner or otherwise reduced in dimension. Reduced dimensions of keycaps, for example, may lead to those keycaps being less structurally sound and so breaking or otherwise failing earlier during a use cycle than would thicker keycaps made of the same material.
Accordingly, there may be a present need for a durable and aesthetically pleasing external surface for an input device.